VC Fund

Gratitude Ventures

Plans are under way for the first Gratitude Fund. Although this will be structured as a separate and independent entity, the Gratitude Fund will work closely with its partner, The Gratitude Foundation, but will focus on the funding of for-profit entities in the social and impact space.

What makes Gratitude Ventures different from other venture firms:

Our focus on both social and financial return – The Gratitude Fund will seek both financial and “impact” return to investors. We will be implementing a detailed system to track both types of return. Financial returns are expected to be in the 5% or greater range. In other words, this is a vehicle for family and endowment investors to earn a modest return while benefiting social causes. Gratitude Ventures will deploy “best-practices” skills from the Silicon Valley venture world on companies that are more socially and impact driven.

“Limited partners” (those that are contributing money to the Fund) can choose to become engaged as “mentors” with some of the investments that the fund will make. Thus the Fund will not only carefully track return from a number of directions, but will offer the opportunity for investors to be part of the success of the companies we will fund.

Focus on Innovation in the social/impact sector. The Fund will focus only on those opportunities that can permanently impact an entire community, nation or global market. We will be looking for those exceptional entrepreneurs who are seeking capital for scaled growth and expansion.

Gratitude Ventures Investors…

The Gratitude Fund will accept investors who are seeking both a financial return in the 5-10% annual or greater range as well as a social/impact return in the area of investment. For example, if an entity we fund is in the Education field, we will track and report back to investors a measurement of students impact, educator skill development, and community impact.

Investments…

The Gratitude Foundation plans to make investments each year in not-for-profit or for-profit entities that are looking for mentorship and annual investment to reach profitability or sustainability.

We will be investing a total of $250,000 and $2 million in organizations that meet the following criteria:

We're excited to announce for the second year that the 2015 Gratitude Awards will be featured at SOCAP! Click here to learn more --> HERE.

Our Philosophy

We empower gifted social entrepreneurs who are embracing innovative products, business models and leadership practices in order to address and defeat some of the greatest social challenges of our time…. [Learn More]